A container or a drum or a barrel is a unit of volume which is used in a variety of contexts. The container is basically used for storing or transportation of required material such as fluids, solids etc. Traditionally, the drums or containers or barrels were made up of wood or metal. Selection of the wood or metal for manufacturing the containers was dependent upon the material stored in these containers.
The containers traditionally available were of standard sizes in accordance to a set of capacity or weight of a given commodity. Though these containers were tough by structure, but had several drawbacks. These containers were heavy that would make transportation of these containers difficult as the total weight of the containers during transportation would be the weight of the containers individually plus the weight of the material in it. Moreover, depending on the climate change, metal or wooden containers would undergo expansion, contraction, corrosion etc. This would make such containers less durable. Further, dismantling such containers would also be one of the biggest difficulty. It required quite a lot of human strength to transport such containers.
Presently, a variety of containers are available in market that facilitate a convenient storing or stacking. Still many of them are not flexible for use i.e. deformation in containers is caused in case of accident suffered by these containers. Moreover, the material inside the containers spill out due to such deformations caused which may be in the form of cracks, bends etc. The containers suffer with deformations due to lack of high compression strength. In such a case, stacking and transportation of such containers also is a problem.
Many a times, during transportation of containers with required material stored inside the containers, it may require a couple of days or weeks to reach the destination. In such cases, the material by which the containers are made should not react with the material stored in the drums as the material stored inside the containers may be hazardous, flammable or reactive fluids. For this purpose, it is very necessary that the containers are made of proper material which provide flexibility, durability, high compressive strength, no reaction with the material stored in them and are not prone to deformation in case of accidents.
In some cases, the shapes of containers are usually circular or made of such type of shapes. However, these have less compressive strength and hence when stacked for transportation may be prone to deformation gradually. Further, since majority of the containers available today are made of metal, these are prone to challenges of erosion and rusting. Furthermore, existing containers face challenge of causing contamination due to volatile fluids within the containers as these lacks specific provisions for discharging the material/fluid within the container.